11 in 11 Challenge - 2nd Quarter

62 books now read for the 11 in 11 Category Challenge . I am doing better than I expected, as I have recently moved house and had to leave most of my books in the U.K.  On Friday, I joined the local library in Avila, opposite the cathedral.  They have a small selection of English books (some of which are on my TBR shelf at home), an even smaller one in German, but a good selection of fiction in Spanish.  This will help me actually read more in Spanish, which is easy to put off at home when you have lots of books in English!

 

I have tinkered a bit with my categories.  As I am trying to read as many books as possible from my almost out of control TBR pile, I have decided to ditch the Olympic Challenge Category as I had nothing at home for it.  I have changed it to Books in a Series, this was partially because I got The Somme Stations from the  Early Reviewer Programme from LibraryThing, and I already had the first 4 books on my shelves.  I managed to get 5 and 6 from Amazon and Greenmetropolis.  This means that I have juggled a couple of the books, something I might do again later.  Below are the second set of 31 books, and, in italics, the books I have moved into new categories.

Category 1:  Latin America

4. The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman

Category 2: 1001 Books

5. The Amazing Adventures of Kavelier and Clay 

Category 3: History  (Fiction and Non-Fiction)

4. Shakespeare: The World as a Stage
5. Bound Feet and Western Dress
6. The White Queen
7. The Diving-Bell and the Butterfly
8. Guernica 
9. The Poe Shadow 

Category 4: Books in a Series
A change of category, from Olympic Challenge to Books in a Series.


1. Wicked (moved from Films)
2. Son of a Witch part of Wicked series (moved from Links)
3. A Lion among Men part of Wicked series (moved from Links)
4. The Necropolis Railway
5. The Blackpool Highflyer - part of the Jim Stringer Series starting with The Necropolis Railway

Category 5: Asia

4. The North China Lover
5. Driveby Saviours
6. Love and longing in Bombay 
7. The House of the Mosque 

Category 6: Not in English

1. Golem: An Old Prague Tale in German
2. La Ciudad de las Bestias in Spanish

Category 7: German Speaking World
 3. Kleiner Werwolf (in Spanish)

Category 8: Film and Adaptations

8. The Day of the Triffids **1001 Book
9. The Big Sleep ** 1001 Book
10. The Graduate ** 1001 Book
 

Category 9: Links

 

1. An Unequal Marriage - Jane Austen Link
2. Sunday at Tiffany's - linked with Breakfast at Tiffany's
3. Jigs and Reels - also read Five quarters of the orange by the same author, Joanne Harris.
4. The Jane Austen Guide to Dating - Jane Austen link to I was Jane Austen's Best Friend
5. The Mysteries of Udolpho - mentioned in I was Jane Austen's Best Friend 

 

Category 10: Travel

2. Ghosts of Spain

Category 11: British Authors

5.  The Story of Lucy Gault **1001 Book
6. Five Quarters of the Orange
7. The Understudy
8. Pandora 
9. Raffles 

One thing I really like about this challenge is the variety of books you read, it forces you out of your comfort zone and it is such fun finding books to slot in.  I am enjoying the Links Category immensely because this fits my personality.  When I find a subject or author I like, I tend to go on a reading binge.  

Top books for the second quarter:

Well, The North China Lover, was a great read.  Dumas' The Lover blew me away when I read it a few years ago, so I had to see how this differed.  It certainly measured up to the first book, but very different.  

I also enjoyed Day of the Triffids, I am no sci-fi fan normally, but in a world of GM products and experimentation, it was a scarily realistic possible vision of the future.

Another good Bill Bryson in Shakespeare: The World as a Stage, more a biography of what we don't know that what we know!

The Amazing Adventures of Kavelier and Clay was unputdownable, I just caught up in the very different cousins and their lives.

I would say, however, the book that affected me most was The Story of Lucy Gault, I was very moved by Lucy's tragic story, so sympathetically written.

Also tragic, but actually uplifting book was The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, this is a book that will stay with me.

Ghosts of Spain was also excellent, for a guide to modern Spain, this is a good start.  It talks about the ghosts and events that have shaped Spain, but what makes it good is that it is written by a foreigner who obviously loves Spain.

Disappointments:

The Understudy  What a pity, I loved Starter for 10!   Not a dreadful book, but not up to his usual standard.

Sundays at Tiffany's.  Oh Mr. Patterson, please stick to your mysteries!

As for the next quarter, I am sat on the sofa with a stack of books.  Shall I head to Nepal with Samrat Umadhay's short stories, or to Flanders with the swashbuckling Captain Altriste, or mourn the loss of Aunt Guadalupe in Mexico?  Better put the coffee pot on and choose ;)

The Wicked Years

I picked up Son of a Witch from the book exchange at the Black Cat Hostel, Asuncion. I already had Wicked at home, but had not yet read it. When I arrived in the States, I went to Barnes and Noble to buy another copy of Wicked, and found there was a third in the series as well, A Lion among Men. A fourth is in the pipeline, but wait for it to come out.

Wicked - This is the other side of the story, here we hear about Elphaba's life leading up to her being known as the Wicked Witch of the East. We go right back to her birth, a green-skinned baby, with her parents believing that she is some sort of punishment for their wrongs. Right from the start, Elphaba is pretty hard to love, she looks strange, she has teeth better suited for a crocodile and a personality to match.
I have never read Baum's books, just seen two films, but Maguire does seem to try and match up his version with the timeline of the original.
This is no book for weens, it deal with other issues, such as the treatment of animals and Animals (such as the Cowardly Lion), as well as the different peoples under the leadership of the Wizard.
The action also moves right around the different lands under the Wizard's control, bringing up the differences between the peoples. There was something rather First-Among- Equals-esque about Elphaba's time at Shiz University, where she meets those that will feature later in her life, including a few characters you will recognise from the film.
I really enjoyed this, but felt that the end was a bit rushed, I wanted to know more of what happened. Luckily I already had the next 2 books in the series.

Son of a Witch is the second book in the Wicked series, with the action continuing a few years after the end of the first. The protagonist is Liir, the possible son of Elphaba, who is found near death at the start. All is not well, the authorities are cracking down on the people in all of the lands. Liir starts as an innocent, but becomes involved in the darker side of life in Oz, especially in his spell in the army.
This is a more complex book, Liir is no hero, well not in the classic sense, he is complicated, but he is living in complicated times. As he journeys, he tries to sort out his feelings towards his mother, indeed trying to find out if she even was his mother, certainly it his relationship with Elphaba which colours all of his others.
Unlike the first book, which has a more definite ending, I felt this one was more of an interim book.

The third volume, A Lion among Men, has a new protagonist, this time it is Brrr's turn, or should I say the Cowardly Lion. Brrr is another ambiguous character, he thinks of himself as good, but his cowardice and complicity has further reaching effects than he would care to admit.
Part of his tale is his trying to find his family, he doesn't remember how he came to be living alone in the forest. We also read of his meeting and time with Dorothy.
I wasn't as enthused at this as with the previous 2, but probably more because I wanted to tell Brrr to grow a pair, rather than the writing.